May 26, 2008

We attended a wedding this weekend and I noticed again just how much of a waste the guest sign-in book really is. I mean, you buy this nice little book that has the same number of pages as a journal and you only end up with two or three filled pages of names. Such a waste.

Well, I went roller skating with my wife and my sister-in-law a few weeks back and, in the midst of loud rap music, obnoxious youth and funky disco lights, I came up with what I assumed to be an original idea: “stroller skating.”

My mind began to race over the idea of women on roller skates, pushing strollers across the rink at a very fast pace, burning calories and causing thier children years of psychological damage. Had I come up with a good idea? I hurried home from the skating rink and did a quick Internet search…darn it! Stroller skating has already been done.

Quickly, I had to come up with a new, even better idea. Think, Dave…what is better than stroller skating? Then it hit me; if I couldn’t be the inventor of stroller skating, I could at least be the inventor of “bowler skating.”

Bowler skating involves disgruntled skaters on a rink, with bowling balls as ammunition. The point is to throw the ball with impunity and try to knock everyone else down. Now for some this might be too easy of a game, so in my mind, the participants would have to consume at least four beers in rapid succession before entering the rink; I’d call this the “equalization factor.” This little factor would perhaps cause this sport to be quite popular with the Nascar crowd.

May 22, 2008

Adam Smith talked about it in his Lectures on Jurisprudence and in his Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. History has shown it to be a reality.What is it? It is the conquest of affluent nations that have lost their will.

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My friend Larry sent me a Wall Street Journal article today by Senator Joseph Lieberman (read it here), which is some pretty good background on what this post is really all about.This post questions the modern character and will of our country.

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Sorry…My Bad

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It is clearly in vogue nowadays for Americans to condemn the acts of their own country, and to paint their country as the cause of global ills. Many Americans erroneously believe that we are the cause of so much misery and suffering in this world.They believe that the world would be a much better place if America wasn’t a superpower and if we were somehow checked by another country, brought down from our high horse and hobbled.

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We’ve come to believe the idea that our actions are somehow inherently wrong, just because another political party is leading the charge. We’ve grown up in a world where we were isolated to the true realities of a very savage world and we’ve been led to believe that we can pacify and tame the world by gently stroking its head and nestling it in our lap.

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Kumbaya, Rubber Bullets, Flower Dancing, and Your Best Life Now

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The hostility, war and bloodshed can all be done away with if only we would take the time to whisper the mantra of peace into the ears of evil people.Once we have convinced them (and we know that we could), they would surely end their struggles, cast off their weapons and hatreds, and dance barefooted and nymph-like through vast fields of flowers.

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We question our moral right to unilaterally intervene in world affairs; we wonder why we aren’t wearing blue helmets and singing kumbaya with a consortium of other nations, carrying pellet guns with rubber bullets into savage battlefields.Surely the forceful and much belabored rhetoric of the United Nations, as well as that of appeasement pundits, can bring a truly lasting peace to the people of the world. Meeting force with force only encourages jihadists, terrorists, dictators and evil regimes.How dare we provoke others by standing up for freedom! By what moral right do we dare to act?

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What we need, so we believe, is some sort of new age, political “pop” diplomacy that will somehow allow us to understand and empathize with the frustrations of evil men, while allowing them, at the same time, to feel our affirmation and non-judgmental hope that they can begin to harness the good within and ‘live their best life now!’ If we could turn back time, perhaps we could have avoided World War II by buying Hitler a veinte mocha frapuchinno and discussing our concerns with him in a brightly colored room filled with aroma-therapy candles.

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A Good Ole Whippin’ In the Public Common

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And so, the debate rages on.We hate and despise each other more than we do those who propose to do us harm. It has become a race and a point of pride to see who among us can best and most thoroughly flagellate Uncle Sam and Lady Liberty, laying them open in the public common in order to prove our undying devotion to peace and hope.

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We dislike those who fight for truth and who take bold, courageous stands.We call this ignorance and hate. We cheer and love those who champion our nation’s self-hatred and who place our freedoms and securities on the altar of the god of global consensus. We applaud those who would give away the riches of our way of life for the deceptive poverty of the world’s way of life.

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Like Hungry Wolves Picking the Bones

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While we are busy in our race to the bottom, trying to emulate the European model of strength and courage, the misunderstood evil nations and men of the world are standing by, waiting like hungry wolves. They are waiting to see how weak we can make ourselves and how indefensible we can become.They don’t even have to do anything but wait around, while we do to ourselves what they otherwise could never do to us.

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And once we have done all the damage that we can do to ourselves, once we are weak and emaciated, once Uncle Sam and Lady Liberty have been whipped, flayed, and mocked, will the misunderstood evil people of the world be able to resist picking the meat off of the bones of the corpse that was once America? Do they not now feast on the corpses of some of the nations of Europe and Asia ?

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Surely by our political acts of penance we will have proven ourselves to the evil of the world and expunged our sins of liberty, morals and courage so that the world will see our commitment to understanding and hope; surely then the evil of the world will see how we abhor the error of our previous ways and will embrace us as brothers and dance with us through the flowers.Surely they would never take the opportunity to unleash true evil on the world and show us the worst realities of hatred and war, the sites of which, thus far, we have only seen the faintest glimpses of.

May 19, 2008

My initial thought, upon reading Thomas’ last comment (click here to read), was to block him from any further postings on my blog – no one likes to be called a hypocrite for expressing valid viewpoints.After pondering the idea, I decided that my best course of action would be to refute Thomas’ assertions because, after all, that’s what good debate is all about; if I were to block Thomas, then I would just be playing right into the mis-perception and stereotyping that Thomas has concerning Christians and conservatives.

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First of all, Thomas indicates that “hypocritical zealots” were the ones trying to suppress gay marriage in California.To this, I respond that the overwhelming majority of Californians were the ones to vote against allowing gay marriage.Therefore, according to Thomas, the majority of Californians are “hypocritical zealots.”The voters refused to allow for homosexual marriage, but the CSC knew better and decided to follow its own leanings, versus the will of the people.Who are the “hypocritical zealots” in this instance: the people or the courts?Would the hypocritical zealots be the people who spoke at the ballot box or the few people who were appointed to their positions and have presumed to usurp the will of the majority?

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And, I also questioned the implications that homosexual marriage will have for the entire country. Basically, once homosexual marriage has been legitimized, the door is opened wide for all sort of courtroom shenanigans and sexual immorality. To each of these in order.

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First, I mentioned the issue of gay, married Californians moving to other states and demanding that their marriages be recognized in those places. Twenty six states have constitutional amendments banning gay marriage.Will the precedent set in California allow the supreme courts of those states to overturn these amendments because the people are somehow not capable of making their own informed voting decisions?Certainly, who would deny that judges with fancy degrees are much more knowledgeable than ignorant voters, who do not know what they really want? Far better be it that judges make these decisions for us since we can’t be trusted with the responsibility of making good choices on our own.

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The same problem will occur when gay couples from states outside of California (including those that already have amendments in place) go to California to obtain their marriage certificates. What will they demand upon their return home?They will challenge the will of the people in court. And, all it will take is one lawsuit with a simple majority of the court to overturn the expressed will of the people.Pretty soon, the precedents are in place for courts all over the land to begin deciding what is morally applicable to the people of the nation. The voices of the people will slowly fade away into the background. Can you hear the pillars of democracy crumbling?

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Now, not to sound biased, I believe that the courts do have a crucial role to interpret laws. However, where do we draw the line between interpretation and legislation? Where do “we the people” lose our voice and our freedom? What, in fact, is really the purpose of a democracy if the voices of the majority don’t really count anymore? Have we sacrificed the many for the few?Are we changing laws and reversing decisions to accommodate the vocal minority over the silent, but voting majority?

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Paul Shlichta wrote, on American Thinker (article here), about some other corollaries that may come from this type of decision making. If we need to allow for homosexual marriages, then why should we discriminate against poligamy?Who are we to tell anyone how many people he or she should marry? Why should we discriminate against those who want to marry their favorite milk cow? What goes on in your barn is certainly none of my business.Who are we to judge someone who wants to marry a brother or a sister? Why should we care if a father wants to marry his daughter? What’s so wrong with teachers having sex with a student or with a man wanting to marry a minor? Aren’t we just being prejudiced if we don’t accept this with open arms?After all, it’s about civil rights, the right to make perverts feel good about their immorality.

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Now, let me contrast the above-mentioned ideas of civil rights with other issues of civil rights.A man is discriminated against based upon the color of his skin.Civil rights violation?Yes.A woman is denied a job because she has a physical impairment.Civil rights violation?Yes. A man wants to marry/have sex with: another man; an animal; a sibling; a mother, father, son daughter.Is it a civil rights violation to deny a man such things? Is there any difference between discriminating against one’s skin color or disabilities and discriminating against one’s personal choice of lifestyle?

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Another point that Mr. Shlichta makes in his article goes on to question whether or not it would be a violation of the rights of heterosexual roommates to deny them the benefits of gay marriage.Would heterosexuals, who have not married, be at a disadvantage in many ways and find themselves faring not as well as homosexuals because they are being discriminated against on account of their sexual orientation? Would not all single heterosexuals fare much better if they were to have a ruling allowing for heterosexual marriage? After all, the law should not be able to discriminate against these people’s desire for marriage based upon their sexual orientation; the same rights should be provided to these people as well.

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Bear in mind (Thomas, focus your attention here), that I have not even brought religion into this posting, as I did not in my last posting.I’m not writing this based upon a religious viewpoint; I’m writing this post using logical arguments, so that I can’t be accused of being using religion to bolster my argument, even though my religious beliefs would lead me to the same conclusions as I’m reaching now using the current argument.

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So, Thomas indicated in his response to my former posting, that I am affected in no way by the CSC ruling. To this, I refer the reader to what has been written above. The entire foundation of democracy hinges upon court decisions like this. Truly, this specific decision may not destroy our country and our laws, but decisions like this, compounded over time, have the potential to irreparably harm everything that this country was founded upon. With such decisions, we begin to enslave the many to the lusts of the few; we begin to create a society with no moral boundaries, no ethical limits. We become a “feel-good” nation, where all is permissible, and accountability is demanded of none.

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When we stretch the argument, we wonder why we even need the ability to vote or to voice our concerns, because others always know so much better than we do what is best for us. At first, we accept that the elite courts are better able to handle such things; later, we demand that they handle such things. We, as a country, lose our strength and revert to fat babies, demanding to be fed by our morality and ethics by those who know better than we do. And, make no mistake, there are many who will take hold of the reigns of power and oblige Americans in this quest.Unfortunately, by this time, the leaders won’t be democratic as they are now.

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Finally, before closing this out, I wanted to address Thomas’ final concern, wherein I was told that if I try cared about the will of the people, then I would be in favor of impeaching Bush and immediately ending the war in Iraq. It is in this concern, that Thomas calls me a hypocrite.

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To this, I would respond that we have elections and Bush was elected by the majority. I don’t think that we should impeach Bush.That’s a personal opinion and has nothing to do with gay marriage. I would remind Thomas that Congress has a lower approval rating than the president. Therefore, to follow Thomas’ line of thinking, we should impeach all of Congress and, once that is complete, we can move on to the president. That is, of course, if Thomas is even correct in his assertion that the majority of people in this country want to impeach Bush. Perhaps Thomas has extrapolated from low approval ratings something about impeachment.Who knows?Whatever is meant by impeachment, I can be sure that, logically, such an argument has nothing to do with gay marriage.

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Hypocrisy on my part?Nope.

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Let’s see if I am a hypocrite because I don’t want to immediately bring the troops home. Bear in mind, of course, that, once again, this has nothing to do with gay marriage. First, do I care about the troops?Yes. Why? Because I served five years in the military and three in the National Guard (just a little context). Would immediately bringing the troops home be a good idea, now that we are already there? Probably not.Such a decision would be a sure fire way to ensure that Iraq ends up worse off than under good ole Hussein. Regardless of what one thinks about the reasons behind going to war, an immediate pullout would be one of the biggest blunders that we could ever make and the idea of such a pullout is preposterous. If American wants the troops home, then the ballot box will indicate as much in November when we choose candidates. Hopefully, we will have a phased pull-out so that we don’t leave a vacuum.Regardless of my beliefs, the ballot box will decide the way forward.